FringeReview UK 2026
Quartet in Autumn
Arcola Theatre, Dalston
Genre: Adaptation, Comedic, Drama, Feminist Theatre, Mainstream Theatre, New Writing, Theatre
Venue: Arcola Theatre, Studio 1
Festival: FringeReview UK
Low Down
Four company co-workers near retirement, but it’s 1977 and women retire earlier. Barbara Pym’s late novel Quartet in Autumn adapted by Booker-winning Samantha Harvey and directed by Dominic Dromgoole plays at the Arcola’s Studio 1 till June 13.
Absorbing, a must-see for anyone asking questions of where we begin our endings.
Review
“I looked around the wood, remembering its autumn carpet of beech leaves and wondered if it could be the kind of place to lie down in and prepare for death when life became too much to be endured.” Letty’s a gentle woman who doesn’t ask for too much. Her comment’s edged with a bittersweet smile. Four company co-workers near retirement, but it’s 1977 and women retire earlier. Barbara Pym’s late novel Quartet in Autumn adapted by Booker-winning Samantha Harvey and directed by Dominic Dromgoole plays at the Arcola’s Studio 1 till June 13.
Pym’s late novel, itself shortlisted for the Booker, followed 16 years of rejections for her novels till Philip Larkin stepped in; now Pym’s permanently in print. But as a quartet Harvey has released the strangely pungent perfume of a time by realising how the work is perfectly adapted both for an interplay and stand-alone monologues. It’s peculiarly fitting for the stage. It moves at a steady but absorbing pace over its two-hours-ten, and the four actors are consummate.
Ellie Wintour’s set involving a red carpet extending over the whole space enjoys matching red filing cabinets on its periphery. The central square though is sunk, as an office of four adjoining desks with bric-a-brac morphs into a restaurant table and finally a couple of separate tables in a very different place. Costumes are shiveringly dowdy for all. Lit by Skylar Turnbull Hurd, there’s deft uses of gulphs of dark tro intimate other spaces; and once a striking use of candles to transport us toa Globe-like flicker of church. Ella Wahlström’s occasionally spooked sound, riffing through many period TV themes yet culminates with the midnight-chiming finale from Mahler’s Das Lied von der Erde.
The four work for a company in central London, and touches of the period drift in like the plastic bags in garish colour they complain of, or the price of eggs and “oyster bacon at 46p. And not the good stuff!” Not that Pym or these characters lack a jaundiced view of the countryside either. “You can tell by the number of insects stuck to your lights” quips truculent Norman, again.
Letty (Kate Duchéne) is the peacemaker, always put upon. A friend asks her to move in with her, but gets entangled with a much younger vicar, and rescinds the offer for now. Letty’s new landlord is a joyous but noisy leader of a sect. Letty’s put upon by offers, each of whom think she should accept them as someone with no agency of her own. Duchéne’s Letty embars on a slow quest for new horizons, the Open University or open choices.
Her counterpart might seem the rather church-complacent but also kind and Edwin (Anthony Calf), whose wife died a decade back. He has a daughter in Beckenham. He’s also decisive in a quiet way, and plays a crucial role in locating one character, always accompanied by Father Gee, but he remains perhaps the most shadowy, possibly most contented. Edwin though is a kind of chronicler, chanting in the seasons under his breath with a doxology of church festivals: Pym’s slightly ironic take on the church riffles through some novels, to end as a calendar-marker. Edwin’s a believer; Letty’s “distant” from God.
Others haven’t enjoyed marriage. Letty for instance: “I thought that love was a necessary ingredient for marriage? Now, having looked around her for forty years, I’m not so sure. All those years wasted, looking for love!” It’s achingly poignant yet Duchéne expresses it like a jigsaw Letty’s not finished.
Pooky Quesnel’s edgy Marcia for a time shares coffee with Norman but he doesn’t wait for the kettle to boil. Their spiky exchanges hide deeper feelings, but Marcia’s precise down to the brand of empty milk bottle she’ll take to the dairy. She doesn’t eat enough yet refers to the newt operation she had without being specific. Poignantly a glowing doll’s house-sized abode gleams red from afar, the home of her surgeon Mr Strong. Marcia’s attachments, her following people around, never build to a wild confrontation. Nothing like that ever happens with Pym’s characters her, unlike some of her earlier novels. Harvey’s emphasised much of the musing as interior monologues, but the spikiest and most upsetting always occur with Marcia taking offence at tactless Norman – and here there’s a clear gender divide with sensitivity. Quesnel’s Marcia is the most haunted of the quartet; her almost alien peeling-away from life around her both theatrical and painfully riveting.
Norman (Paul Rider, last seen here in Don’t Destroy Me) is a consummate foot-in-mouth character who yet carries grief through his truculence. His decade-dead sister’s husband has nothing in common with him, yet he visits him in hospital. His reward is a curious one, but nothing compared to the one he finally receives: the coup of the paly after the crisis and aftermath.
The set-pieces – a restaurant reunion gone wrong, or curiously accidental wanderings to Marcia’s house by two characters – build a muted but powerful climax. The stoicism isn’t entirely a waiting for death though. By the end two characters at least have new opportunities, even down to living spaces. Another is content. Yet the tragedy of self-neglect and denial, along with these swift changes, seem times and indeed contemporary. Pym – as realised by Harvey – was the first to say some things. And in this build of quiet magnificence Dromgoole lends enough oxygen for it to be said clear, by all four actors. Absorbing, a must-see for anyone asking questions of where we begin our endings.
Associate Producer Rachel Edwards, Production Manager Fay Powell-Thomas, Costume Supervisor Bea Viña, Assistant Director Cara Dromgoole, Stage Manager on Book Naomi Shanson, ASM India Martin, Voiceover Artist Simon Kunz, Press Bread and Butter PR.
